Re: LaTeX - A Crash Course

D should have been defined before the integral is given, and if this is the case, then a single integral sign implies integration of the region, whatever dimension it may be. If this is not the case, it is typical to place the D on the inner most integral sign:

"In the real world, this would be a problem. But in mathematics, we can just define a place where this problem doesn't exist. So we'll go ahead and do that now..."

Re: LaTeX - A Crash Course

LaTeX is a typesetting language used for writing (math) documents. It is used universally to write papers for publication in almost any field of study, as well as entire books.

But it works much differently than Word. You type LaTeX in plain text, that is, no special formatting appears when you write. So if I wanted to do italic, my document would look like:

The quick \textit{brown} fox jumps over the lazy dog.

I then pass my document through an engine, and what pops out is that phrase with the word "brown" in italics. Compare this to Word: when you make something italic in Word, you see it in your original document as being italic. This is known as "rich text".

Because of licensing, Microsoft can't incorporate LaTeX into Word: they sell Word and LaTeX is free.

"In the real world, this would be a problem. But in mathematics, we can just define a place where this problem doesn't exist. So we'll go ahead and do that now..."